Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer, a tablet computer terminal, and an image processing apparatus, a method of controlling a lock screen displayed while the information processing apparatus is locked, and a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium.
Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
Users operate portable terminal apparatuses such as smartphones and tablet computer terminals with touch gestures on touch panels provided on their displays. In order to avoid waking a portable terminal apparatus from standby state with an unintended touch gesture on a standby screen, it is very common for users to disable all touch gestures except for specified touch gestures including unlock gestures by locking the portable terminal apparatus.
Furthermore, portable terminal apparatuses are commonly configured to display, while they are locked, a lock screen on their displays along with an unlock icon being present on the lock screen so that users can unlock them by touching and moving (swiping) the unlock icon on the lock screen.
In this configuration, after unlocking a portable terminal apparatuses with a swipe gesture, users need to select a desired application again; in other words, they need to take more than one step, unlocking and application selecting, in order to use a desired application. This is not user-friendly.
As a solution to the problem, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2013-065289 proposes a technique of: displaying an unlock icon and application icons each corresponding to an application on a lock screen; and activating a desired application by releasing the unlock icon on an application icon representing this application. This technique allows users to finish unlocking and application selecting and activating by taking only one gesture, which apparently contributes to the user-friendliness.
Information processing apparatuses such as multi-function peripherals (MFP), i.e., multifunctional digital image processing apparatuses having copier function, scanner function, facsimile function, and other functions were recognized as copier-based apparatuses having other functions, conventionally. Recent years, they are recognized as integrated communication apparatuses having many essential printer and scanner functions such as Web printing and scanned data transmission and many of them are configured, as in a conventional manner, to initially display a function selecting screen instead of a copier function screen.
Many of them are also capable of working with smartphones and tablet computer terminals and an environment in which users operate information processing apparatuses such as MFPs, smartphones, and tablet computer terminals has become seamless.
With the above-described background technology, there is a discussion about a MFP, for example, that requires user authentication. After a user logs out by operating an operation panel, such a MFP is locked to fall in standby state and displays an unlock icon and function icons on a screen so that users can finish unlocking and function selecting by taking only one gesture that is touching and moving the unlock icon and releasing it on one of the function icons. The MFP, however, has a problem as described below.
As previously mentioned, the MFP requires user authentication; despite the technique that permits unlocking and function selecting by taking only one gesture, users are required to take an extra step for user authentication in order to use a desired function. This is still not user-friendly.
This is not just about MFPs as described above and the same is true on any other information processing apparatuses that require user authentication.